Who Says We Don’t? What Skiing Can Learn from the National Brotherhood of Skiers

SKI BUMS isn’t the only minority-focused skiing and snowboarding club. The incredible National Brotherhood of Skiers has been hosting trips for black and brown skiers & snowboarders since the 1970′s! Read this:

“Time to take a page from the National Brotherhood of Skiers, who rolled through Squaw this March in colorful costume, dancing their way through the Village and clearly not giving a damn about who the best skier on the mountain is.“The goal of the NBS is to promote winter sports in the urban communities, or the black communities, or however you want to say it,” said Arthur Clay, who co-founded the club in 1972 with Ben Finley. Clay smiles from beneath a thick white mustache; he’s wearing a bowler hat and long black sport coat framing a tuxedo t-shirt (this is both his wearing-around garb as well as his on-mountain ski outfit). Growing up in the Midwest, Clay’s options for skiing were slim. His first day on the hill was at the Playboy Club at Lake Geneva, and after being invited on a ski trip later by some female friends he got a taste for the sport and launched on a path that led him to co-creating a club that would annually bring thousands of black skiers West. Since then, he says he’s “fallen down some of the best ski hills in the world.”